Sunday, 29 March 2015

The point is mixed media style pay very much attention to the layers. But in this style artists generally use layers of different materials and medias.

And I wanted to make a card using the translucent layers of tracing paper.

Let's see.

I wanted to achieve the effect of lightness and transparency.
For this I used the white tracing paper, stamping pad were taken not black, but the color of licorice, and also pale blue letters for the label.

Here are only three layers and letters. As you can see some lower layers climbs out of the edges of the upper layers.

This card does not correspond to the style of "clean and simple", but that's how it would be desirable to describe!

Tuesday, 24 March 2015

Hello everyone, Alison (butterfly) here, this time with a candle lantern. Take one old jam jar, some alcohol inks, gilding flakes and the fabulous new Artistic Stamper Flourish Background stamp, and here's what you get.

Let me take you through some of the steps it took to get here...

I started by applying various blue/green alcohol inks to the exterior of the jar... The new colours Mermaid and Botanical are in there, as well as Meadow, Stream and Denim.

I just kept dabbing until I was happy with the effect - I love it on the inside too! This would be a good place to stop if you just want a really simple way to light your summer garden evenings.

I debated doing some powder embossing with the flourish stamp, but in the end decided it was way too long since I'd played with the gilding flakes I bought way back when I started this whole crafting hoo-ha. No idea any longer what colour mix this is - and I may even have mixed in various colourways together in my little plastic box.

As you can see, I didn't quite get a clean stamping with the Flitterglu on most of the sides of the jar (wouldn't want to attempt this on a round jar, by the way!), but I actually don't mind that, on two counts. One: it means you get a really distressed look, like the lantern has been around the block a few times, and has some history...

Two: it means you get a proper look at the alcohol ink patterns in lots of places, which are attractive in themselves.

Again it was pretty cool from the inside...

... but since the flakes were multi-coloured, I found it a bit hard to tell what was going on with only the very translucent alcohol inks underneath. It was too translucent... I think you can see what I mean here.

So I decided it needed an internal coat of colour too - South Pacific Fresco paint, painted onto the inside of the jar - just to give a slightly stronger background for the flourishes to show against.

I dyed some seam binding with Rusty Hinge Distress Ink and wound some gold and beige satin ribbons together with it to create the finishing touch at the top.

It's a bit wild and extravagant, but I thought it suited the rococo style of the candle lantern itself.

As usual, it's been difficult to capture a photograph of how it looks with the candlelight illuminating it from within, but I hope this gives you a slight idea of the glow.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. You've still got about a week to come and play in our Spring is Coming challenge here at The Artistic Stamper. You have to include some stamping, but you don't have to use Artistic Stamper stamps for that... although if you do, you automatically get a double-entry to the prize draw. Hope to see you there!

Tuesday, 10 March 2015

Hello all, Alison (butterfly) here with a set of gardeners' tags using some of the recent new releases here at Artistic Stamper.

They're very simple tags, as they're intended for practical use. It occurred to me that (apart from crafters) there is a group of people for whom tags are useful, and that's gardeners, especially the novices amongst us.

They're useful for labelling plants, adding reminders of particular tasks or treatments an individual plant requires or enjoys; not to mention reminding yourself what's where or what's what (to avoid the horrible consequences of ignorance outlined in the quote I just had to include today!).

So the new Gardening Stamps seemed to be perfect combined with some of the small, cheap luggage labels in a nice earthy brown which were sitting in my stash.

I kept it simple with the stamping. The images are stamped in Potting Soil (but of course!), and I added my favourite Calligraphy Mat #19 in Rusty Hinge to prompt the idea that the gardener should add some of her or his own writing to these tags on the back, with whatever information is needed.

I did a bit of inking, both with Potting Soil and Rusty Hinge, and finally added a couple of splatters of Ground Coffee Dylusions - again encouraging whoever's using them to get them good and mucky - no need to keep them pristine!

Some simple garden twine - what else? - to attach them with and we're done. Thanks so much for stopping by today. Perhaps these gardeners' tags will have put you in the mood to come and play in our Spring is Coming challenge here at The Artistic Stamper this month... we'd love to see you there.

When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant.
Anonymous
(Hence the need for good labelling with tags!)